Becca Fair and Foul

by Deirdre Baker

She thought about how Gran knew things about The Tempest, even bits she hadn’t seen Becca and Jane rehearse.

  “Let’s ask Gran,” she said.

  “Gran?” asked Alicia.

  “Lucy’s costumes will fit her perfectly,” Becca said.

  “And afterwards she can use the hernia truss to tie up her pea vines,” said Jane.

  * * *

  “Of course I’ll do it,” Gran said. “It’s a small price to pay for Lucy’s excellent woodpile. Just give me the lines.”

  She didn’t hesitate at all, even when she saw all the bloodstains on Lucy’s script.

  Now Becca stood with Jane in the trees, ready for her entrance, listening to the chatter of the audience as they arranged themselves on chairs and the ground.

  Sleepy with painkillers and reclining in the moss, Lucy switched on the lights.

  It was time.

  * * *

  Becca played Miranda and Gran flew through the trees. True, Jane dropped a log on her foot, Alicia stepped on her robe and tore half the seams out, and this time, it was Gran who tripped and fell on her face in the salal.

  But she took to Lucy’s roles as if they were something she’d always longed to do.

  “‘To fly, to swim, to dive into the fire, to ride on the curled clouds —’” she cried out, riding the zipline through the airy space between trees and twinkly lights.

  The sky darkened. The stars came out and the sea reflected the last pink of sunset into the stage. Shadows of leaves and fir needles wobbled among the actors, giving Prospero and Caliban, Ariel, Ferdinand, Miranda and the clowns a momentary airiness.

  “‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on,’” proclaimed Alicia, “‘and our little lives are rounded with a sleep.’”

  Out of the darkness of the audience, Bill-next-door snored — for real! — and everyone laughed.

  Gran flew from one side of the stage to the other, her white hair tufting from beneath Lucy’s helmet, adorned with fresh seaweed.

  “‘On the bat’s back do I fly,’” she sang out.

  “‘That’s my dainty Ariel!’” Alicia called, and she blew Gran a big kiss.

  Who-who-who-whooooo! called the barred owls, and a solitary Pacific tree frog croaked its tenor song.

  Out in the sea, a seal slapped at the water with powerful, cracking splashes.

  In the audience there was a small commotion as the Rosses’ damaged deck chair collapsed under Mrs. Barker.

  “‘My dearest love!’” Ferdinand told Miranda, and Uncle Martin and Auntie Meg hugged each other tightly.

  Now that it was happening, it was a performance more of amazement than tears, Becca thought, in spite of Lucy’s accident, Ms. Spiky-hair, and all the mortal sorrows and natural passions that had inspired it. She hurried to pull on Miranda’s dress. Now the play was a magical world, and no longer trouble, worry and labor. In these moments Auntie Meg and Auntie Clare were smiling, and the audience was big, so the takings for grans and orphans would be generous. Up in the trees and out in the sea, creatures swam, flew, rested or nested, each with its own life to live out.

  “‘Their understanding begins to swell,’” Alicia said, gazing into the darkness of the audience, “‘and the approaching tide will shortly fill the reasonable shore that now lies foul and muddy.’”

  The tide brimmed in the bay, and up in the trees the Qualicum blew once more, huffing sweet grassy air from the bluffs down into The Tempest.

  “‘We beheld our royal, good and gallant ship,’” Becca declared, returning as the boatswain with his ship safe and sound at the play’s end.

  It all began with a boat and now it wasn’t about a boat at all.

  Then she had to rush off to change again.

  “‘My Ariel, chick … to the elements be free,’” Alicia told Gran, and Gran made one last zip across the stage, and out.

  Crash! Becca heard, but it was lost in Alicia’s final speech.

  In that moment, all the world seemed to be in Alicia. She came near the audience and spoke to each of them — Auntie Meg, Uncle Martin, Auntie Clare and Uncle Clarence, Aunt Cat and Sally who had arrived to take care of Lucy, Mum and Dad and Pin, who had screeched in at the last possible second, Mac, Merlin and Aunt Fifi, Bill-and-Kay-next-door, their grandchildren, the Rosses, Keswicks, Henges, Mrs. Barker and the whole troop of firefighters and first responders, along with Ms. Spiky-hair, Annie from the vegetable stand, the fish-and-chips boy and so many others, Becca could hardly hope to recognize them.

  “‘Now I lack spirits to enforce, art to enchant,’” Alicia said in a low, serious voice. “‘And my ending is despair, unless I be relieved by prayer … As you from crimes would pardoned be, let your indulgence set me free …’”

  She stood tall, strong and subdued, and her shimmering cloak drifted to the ground.

  * * *

  In the hush afterwards, Becca felt everything — all the sadness and funniness and awfulness and happiness of the last weeks in a big lump in the middle of her.

  Lucy turned out the lights.

  Who-who-who-whooooo! the barred owl called once more, and a heron squawked loudly, outraged to be disturbed at his night fishing.

  And then, everyone clapped. They clapped, and shouted and cried and laughed and hooted and clapped some more. There was even some kissing.

  In fact, there was quite a lot of kissing. But none of it happened with Merlin’s friend Ms. Spiky-hair, who was the very last person to stop clapping.

  After the bows, and the curtain calls without any curtains, aunties Meg and Clare and uncles Martin and Clarence brought out piles of food and drink and it became a party.

  “No wonder you were too busy to phone,” said Mum, putting her arm around Becca.

  “Pin loved it,” said Dad, and Pin gave Becca a tiny, slobbery kiss.

  “Can we get a zipline, too?” Becca heard Kay’s grandson ask.

  “Becca,” said Mac. “You’re the magician here. It all started with you!”

  “And Jane,” said Becca.

  Gran gave Becca a hug. “That was just about the best fun I’ve had in my life. Even if I did hit a tree on that last exit.”

  “Becca, Jane, Isobel — there’s someone new to the island I want you to meet,” Merlin said, leading Ms. Spiky-hair towards them. “My Aunt Inanna.”

  “Your aunt!” Becca exclaimed.

  Merlin’s spiky-haired aunt! Not a two-timer after all. Becca gave Merlin a great hug herself.

  “Inanna has many skills,” Merlin said. “Not least of which is that she’s a certified plumber.”

  “What? Two plumbers on the island!”

  Becca thought Gran might faint with joy.

  “Oh,” Merlin said. “I guess I didn’t tell you. I’ve decided to go on leave for a while.”

  “Fifi did this, didn’t she?” said Gran. “I knew all this Shakespeare would lead to no good!”

  “Now, Isobel,” said Merlin. “I do love Fifi and I want to be with her. And I do love Shakespeare. But mostly it was the animal remains in Jane’s family’s sewage system that were the last straw. That, and being famous. I can’t go anywhere without people bugging me! I thought I’d try out a quiet life, so I’m going back to the theater.”

  Becca thought of Merlin singing Shakespeare songs in Gull. Plotting his escape, listening in on rehearsals, thrilled to see his plumber aunt arrive on the island.

  Appearing in the park with Aunt Fifi. Jumping into her sporty car and driving off into the night. Showing up for breakfast more days than not.

  “I didn’t know she was your aunt,” she whispered to Merlin. “I thought she was your new girlfriend. ”

  “A new girlfriend! Never,” said Merlin. “‘Never, never, never, never, never.’”

  Then he added, “That’s a quotation from Shakespeare. Fifi is the only one for me.”


  Never could be sad or good, Becca thought, and this time it was good.

  “Is that tattoo a portrait of your favorite drummer or the cross-section of a turnip?” Aunt Fifi said to Inanna.

  “Fifi!” cried Gran. “She’s the only plumber on the island!”

  “She’s also a midwife,” Merlin said. “And a Scrabble champion.”

  “Scrabble!” exclaimed Gran.

  “Wait!” Becca heard Alicia say to Inanna. “Aren’t you the person who came on a scooter? Would you let me ride it?”

  “Oh!” said Jane. “It’s just like one of Shakespeare’s plays where everything turns out right. Only no marrying. Just scooters and Scrabble and plumbers!”

  But some things can never be right, Becca thought, looking at Auntie Meg cuddling Pin, and then Auntie Meg and Uncle Martin came over to give Becca a hug and a kiss.

  “Thank you,” Auntie Meg said, with tears in her eyes. “It was really, really wonderful to laugh. And I’ll never forget the sight of my mum on the zipline.”

  “I told you acting was dangerous,” Lucy said to Alicia, her speech muffled with dental apparatus.

  “Everything you do is dangerous,” said Alicia.

  “And now I’m going to have to have root canals,” Lucy said. “And I’m only thirteen!” She turned to Becca. “And guess what! The dentist is a sailing instructor.”

  “Oh!” Merlin said. “How could I forget? I have something for you and Jane —”

  And he took them around to where he’d parked his van.

  “Angharad who works on the ferry gave it to me in exchange for plumbing,” Merlin said. “She said the sea brought it. The ferry crew salvaged it after that last Qualicum.”

  Becca looked into the dark van at the empty shell of a sailboat.

  “‘Not rigged, nor tackle, sail, nor mast,’” said Merlin. “Just like the boat they set Prospero adrift in. But you can have it if you’d like.”

  A boat!

  It would be a lot of work, finding the right rigging and tackle, sails, oars and oarlocks. Harder even than getting a whole new boat. It was more like the promise of a boat than a real one.

  But it felt like this frail, empty hull had already carried her and Jane a long way, really — from the otters’ bedroom to the eagles’ nest, from the wild bear to children and grans far away beyond the sea.

  Where would it take them next?

  Becca could hardly wait to find out.

  Acknowledgments

  The expertise and experiences of many people and creatures went into Becca’s and Jane’s adventures. First and foremost, thanks to Ariel and Robin Baker-Gibbs, Lilian Ross-Millard and Christopher and Jacob Ross-Ewart for their island production of The Tempest, staged August 16, 2004. In particular, the recollections of Robin, Ariel and Lily have been invaluable. Thanks to Martha Ross, who supported the youthful cast with direction and who was very generous with memories and expertise; to John Millard, who provided musical direction to that summer’s Tempest, and whose haunting version and recording of “Heave Away, Johnny,” from the album A People’s Fame, echoes throughout Becca Fair and Foul. Thanks to Dale Genge and Ian Raffel for tutorials on speaking Shakespeare; to Isaiah Jacobson for being tutored with me; to Robin’s grade two teacher Katherine Hunter, who didn’t think seven years old was too young for children to enjoy Shakespeare. Thanks to my colleagues Lynne Magnusson, Carol Percy and Paul Stevens for many conversations about The Tempest, Shakespeare’s language and English in general.

  For witting and/or unwitting inspiration, sharing adventures, memories of adventures, or knowledge of matters meteorological, zoological, botanical, marine, dietary, dental, plumbing-related, etc., my debts are abundant. Thanks to Donna Baker, Robin and Ariel Baker-Gibbs, Jenny Balke, Alice Bandoni, Melanie Boulding, Chris Bromige, Paula Courteau, Dennis Dalziel, Doranne Demontigny, Jesse and Robert Demontigny, Robert Gibbs, Jane Harrison, Richard Hiebert, Kathy Hornby, HUGGS (Hornby’s United Grandmothers and Grand Sisters), Laurie and Chris Jacobson, Elias Jacobson, Michele Landsberg, Stephen Lewis, Kay Luney, Giancarlo Moro, Rick Morritt, Hamish Murray, Helen Onorah, Shae and Oakley Rankin, Bill Rapanos, Ilze Raudzins, Donald Ross, Lilian Ross-Millard, Christine Tamburri, John Tayless, Betty Tomoko von Hardenberg, Peter Walford, Cedar Wallace, Ann Zielinski, Amanda and Rob Zielinski, and the deckhand who showed me the dinghy the ferry crew salvaged in Lambert Channel one windy crossing in late August.

  Becca, Jane, Lucy and Alicia donate the funds they raise to the Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign of the Stephen Lewis Foundation. You can find out more about it at stephenlewisfoundation.org/what-we-do/areas-of-work/grandmothers.

  The editions of The Tempest used in preparing the story were The Arden Shakespeare, ed. Frank Kermode (Methuen, London and New York, 1980) and The Arden Shakespeare, ed. Virginia Mason Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan (Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2011). Careful readers: note that Becca took theatrical liberty with the sequence of some of the play’s speeches. Thanks to Hamish Murray for the gift of The Wind Came All Ways: A Quest to Understand the Winds, Waves and Weather in the Georgia Basin, by Owen S. Lange (Environment Canada, Vancouver, 1998).

  Heartfelt thanks to Nan Froman, Michael Solomon and all at Groundwood Books, most especially Shelley Tanaka.

  Becca Fair and Foul is a memorial to my beloved grandmother, Hazel Haskins, and to the niece we never got to know, Hazel Jacobson. To Bob Baker, Gene Barker and Ann MacKay. To Sheila Barry of Groundwood Books. May they be remembered for blessing.

  Deirdre Baker has taught children’s literature throughout Canada and the United States, and she currently teaches in the English department at the University of Toronto. She is the co-author (with Ken Setterington) of A Guide to Canadian Children’s Books, and her Small Print column appears in the Toronto Star.

  Deirdre lives in Toronto, and she spends her summers on British Columbia’s Hornby Island — the setting for Becca at Sea and Becca Fair and Foul.

  Also by Deirdre Baker

  Becca at Sea

  “One girl’s winter, spring and summer of wonder and growth on a glorious northwest coast island.”

  — Kirkus

  Becca floated on her back to rest, sneaking peeks at the reefs that were covered with seals …

  From here the seals just looked like a lot of lumps, but she knew what they were like in the water. Sleek and powerful and not really human …

  Suddenly, it felt like she and Lucy and Alicia were all alone … the water was the seals’ home, and she was a visitor here.

  “Well, this isn’t so bad,” Alicia said loudly. “This isn’t so terrifying.”

  At the sound of her voice, dozens of seals poked up their heads. They turned dark eyes and whiskered faces to the girls.

  “Just swim,” Becca whispered. “And shut up.”

  ★ “… [Baker’s] dialogue is true-to-life, witty, and intelligent. Each episode enriches the portrait of Becca’s memorable extended family with delightfully preposterous, yet insightful detail … With a lovingly depicted island setting that readers will yearn to visit, this funny, endearing book should find a wide audience.”

  — Horn Book, starred review

  ★ “This wonderful novel is reminiscent of Lucy Maud Montgomery at her finest — episodic yet energetic, and rich in brilliant characterization and incident … Young readers will be eager for more of this plucky heroine’s adventures.”

  — Quill & Quire, starred review

  “To call Becca at Sea a rite-of-passage novel is to diminish its subtlety. It is really a much richer creature than that, a beautifully paced, perfectly pitched narrative in the voice of a girl caught in the eddy between babyhood and teenage-hood, one that delineates the subtle ripening of self in the midst of fully fleshed family members and friends.”

  — Globe and Mail

  About the Publisher

 
Groundwood Books is an independent Canadian children's publisher based in Toronto. Our authors and illustrators are highly acclaimed both in Canada and internationally, and our books are loved by children around the world. We look for books that are unusual; we are not afraid of books that are difficult or potentially controversial; and we are particularly committed to publishing books for and about children whose experiences of the world are under-represented elsewhere.

  Groundwood Books gratefully acknowledges the traditional territory of the Wendat, the Anishnaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Métis, and the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation on which we operate.

  Groundwood Books is proud to be a part of House of Anansi Press.